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4 Last-Minute Halloween Contests You Can Implement Today!

If you’ve been wanting to leverage the first big holiday of the holiday season, you’ve still got some time!

Halloween kicks off the holidays for businesses and this year it’s expected that 162 million people will celebrate the spooky day.*

If you haven’t created your Halloween strategies yet, don’t worry, we have five last-minute contest ideas you can implement today!

#1: Halloween Costume Photo Contest

One of the first things people think about come October is what they’ll wear. Finding the perfect Halloween costume can be a pretty big deal, and lots of people spend big bucks or lots of time to create a costume they can be proud of.

In fact, this year shoppers are expected to spend $ 2.8 billion on costumes*. Even those who aren’t buying their costumes still plan on making them!

To engage with the thousands of followers who plan to dress up for Halloween — or plan to dress up their children — host a Halloween costume photo contest! This is a great way to allow your online fans to show off their awesome Halloween costumes, while also giving them a chance to win a cool prize from your company. Hosting a photo contest online or on Facebook is super easy with ShortStack. In fact, you can set up a photo contest in 10 quick steps.

#2: Pet Photo Vote Contest

According to USA Today*, 23 million people will dress their pets for Halloween! No surprise there. Have you ever noticed how well dogs and cats pull off devil horns?! This might be one of the many reasons people love putting silly costumes on their pets :).

This October, host contest you know your pet-loving Facebook fans and social followers will love: A Photo-Voting Halloween Pet Costume contest! To allow people to upload their photos of their festive furry friends and then vote on their favorite photos (or their own photo submission), set up your photo contest, then use ShortStack’s Voting Widget to enable voting, just like we taught you in this article.

A photo-voting contest is a little bit more exciting than a regular photo contest because the winner is determined by the community. This adds another level of engagement to your Facebook contest, as people who have submitted a photo entry are more apt to share your business’s Halloween contest with their friends so they can get more votes!

#3: Instagram Video “Best Scare” Contest

If you’re a fan of Ellen DeGeneres, you’re going to like this Halloween contest idea. Ellen likes scaring people and catching the moment on film (check out this hilarious video if you need a good laugh). Take this fun idea and apply it to a Halloween-themed Instagram video contest!

Throughout the month of October encourage your followers to scare their friends and family and capture the moment on Instagram video! Create a hashtag for your Halloween scare contest (preferably one that’s relevant to your brand and the holiday) and ask them to upload their videos to your campaign for a chance to win an awesome prize from your company!

If you want the step-by-step instructions for how to plan and set up an Instagram video contest using ShortStack, read this post.

Here are the most Important things to keep in mind:

• Instagram users with “private” profiles will not be able to submit. Make note of this somewhere obvious within the copy of your campaign.

• Contest entrants can only submit videos that have been posted within the last 2 weeks. It’s a good idea to make this clear in your campaign rules copy as well.

• Submissions via Instagram will show up in the Voting Widget.

• The Instagram video contest feature is available to ShortStack users on a free plan for up to 25 entries.

#4: Halloween Recipe Pin and Win Contest

Go to Pinterest and search for “Halloween recipe.” You’ll find lots of pictures of super creative and festive treats, along with instructions on how to create each. During this time of year, this is popular Pinterest search. Since people are already searching and pinning Halloween recipes, why not create an opportunity for these pinners to win something from your brand for doing something they’re already doing?

A lot of Pinterest users are also on Facebook. In fact, nine million Pinterest users reportedly have connected their Pinterest accounts to Facebook. So it’s no wonder that the popularity of businesses hosting Pinterest contests has skyrocketed within this past year. To engage your Pinterest-loving fans, host a Pin and Win Halloween Recipe contest. Bonus: This is a great way to convert your Facebook fans into new Pinterest followers.

Do you plan on hosting a Halloween contest? We want to see it! Please share a link with us in the comments!